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The Salem Witch Trials And Mccarthyism In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

1097 Words5 Pages

Imagine waking up to banging on the door and shouting from a large crowd. It’s still dark outside and everyone is holding pitch forks and torches, staring at the door and waiting for an appearance. All these people are at the door accusing innocent good people of witchcraft. In the 1690s, many people, mostly women, were accused of witchcraft and that turned into the Salem witch trials. History repeats itself because in the 1950s, just like the Salem witch trials, many people were accused of communism, a period known as the Red Scare. Arthur Miller portrayed the red scare through the crucible by using power, ignorance, and fear.

In either situation, there are cases of power. Back in these times it was usual that the men had the most if not …show more content…

In the crucible many of the girls let fear kind of control them and what they did and spoke. To go along with that, the red scare did almost the exact same thing but for all people who would have feared being accused of communism. From ipl.org again, “The Salem witch trials and McCarthyism have an uncanny relation to one another. In Salem people were afraid of not appearing Christian enough, meanwhile during the 50’s Americans feared of being accused of communist.” This just explains how much alike the Salem witch trials are to the red scare through fear. Having a fear as deep as this will cause panic and distress. From ipl.org again “A person who sympathized with Communists was persecuted, just as if someone tried to defend the accused witches of Salem.” This just shows that not only did the people guilty of communism or guilty of being witched felt fear but the people who tried to take their side. People who vouched for someone they may have liked to try and convinced authorities that they weren’t communist or witched only got themselves into trouble as well. Lastly, the website historyhit.com describes “The paranoia and fear of Communism McCarthy spread during the 1950s never quite disappeared in America, where Communism is still often viewed as the ultimate enemy.” This mentions that the worry or fear of communism never went away and might never. The terror that the communists still bring to America is a lot more than you'd expect for this to happen just under 100 years

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